A Bad Case of the Mondays
by roisaber
Summary: Regular college student Craig summons Twilight Sparkle to Earth, not believing that the instructions he was given could possibly work. When she arrives, they work together to put an end to a great evil that has been plaguing humanity since the Babylonian era.


The first thing to note about Craig White was that he had entirely too much time on his hands.

Craig was halfway through summer vacation following his first year attending the University of California, Irvine. Major: Undeclared. He'd been moderately successful, earning a 3.4 GPA over the two semesters, and his parents were distantly proud of him. His father worked on an oil rig and was gone for months at a time, and his mother worked as a nurse and, by some unspoken arrangement with Craig's father he didn't care to speculate about, disappeared for days at a time. Now Craig was back at the family home in Long Beach. Most of Craig's high school friends were gone; they'd all moved into apartments nearer to their school, flung across the country like marbles on a hot savannah. To put it simply, Craig didn't have a lot to do.

Craig exhausted his PS4 games, exhausted his PS3 games, and exhausted his PS2 games twice over. He argued with random strangers on the Internet and masturbated. He went on a couple unsuccessful OKCupid dates, and occasionally drove around aimlessly in his black 2002 Jetta just to get out of the house. He didn't have any friends around to buy him liquor, and he hadn't yet worked up the courage to discover just how accommodating California's medical marijuana statutes could be, so he was suffering from a long bout of sobriety that was leading him into a dangerous place mentally.

Another thing of note about Craig White is that he was white. Really, really white. I mean, if you looked up "white people" in an encyclopedia of racial stereotypes, you might just find Craig White's yearbook photo grinning looking back at you. His favorite baseball team was the Anaheim Angels, and he attended several games a season. His family, such as it was, lead a comfortable middle class existence in a two story tract home in the boom era suburbs that defined the late 20th century. For some unimaginable reason, he thought learning the autoharp would make girls think he was mysterious and sexy, and so he was mildly ungifted with the second whitest instrument in the world, displaced only by the Theremin.

[Author:] Okay, I'm going to have to step in here for a second. Go look up "Legend of Zelda Theme on Theremin" and prepare to be astounded.

That's how Craig ended up getting into My Little Pony. Threads constantly popped up on a certain internationally infamous image board, and Craig's natural resistance to the show was slowly ground down until out of nothing but raw curiosity about what all the fuss was about, he torrented the first season. After carefully double-checking the house to make sure no one was around, he streamed it to the huge plasma TV in the living room and prepared to be disappointed. His expectations were disappointed, because the show was outlandishly good.

_No, you guys, I'm serious!_ Craig rapidly typed. _It actually _is_ good. We're _not_ just being ironic. Lauren Faust did Powderpuff Girls too, and everybody liked that, remember?_

**You're a fag**, the next post in the thread explained.

But the one below that had a picture of Lyra shrugging. **Haters gonna hate.**

Craig watched all the episodes he could torrent over the next few days. His mother came, shared some distant conversation with him, and left for parts unknown. Craig attended the dedicated My Little Pony board more and more often, sharing observations of trivia and inside jokes with his new friends. He was ecstatic. He might not have many friends left in Long Beach, but he did have a community where he belonged, in the strange post-modern topography of cyberspace.

**You guys, I swear to God, I saw Fluttershy for a moment last night**, a poster who went by the tripcode CutieChaserFlutterby. **My Tulpa is finally appearing!**

Craig blinked. He'd never heard of a Tulpa before.

_A Tulpa?_ he posted. _What's that supposed to be?_

When he refreshed the page, there was an answer waiting for him.

**It's like thoughts given life. The term comes from Vajrayana Buddhism. The Tibetans believed that if you concentrated on something long enough and hard enough, and imbued it with enough energy, the thoughtform itself could gain a semi- independent existence and act like a real person. You'll be able to see it, hear it, talk to it… everything! And it's true! I know it sounds crazy, but it actually ****_does_**** work!**

Craig was fucking dubious to say the least.

_That's impossible._

**No, it's fucking true, I swear to God**, CutieChaserFluttershy wrote back.

_What do you mean by "energy?"_

**You know, energy. Attention, concentration, sexual magick, that sort of thing. **

_What, like masturbate or something and try to imbue a picture of Fluttershy with your energy?_

**See? You understand it exactly. This intuitive knowledge of how it works is something we're born with, but our society takes careful steps to try to keep us from realizing it. **

Craig didn't really believe it, but later that day he decided to try it out. First, he had to decide on a pony. They all had their virtues and their charms, but he eventually settled on Twilight Sparkle. As a college student he felt an affinity for her, and though he wasn't nearly as smart as she was, he did spend a lot of time with his head in a book in order to get a decent grade. Feeling the urge, he loaded up some relatively normal porn and started whacking it. When he was about to come, he tried concentrating all that strain, all that itching, all that glorious pain onto Twilight Sparkle. He ended up missing with the tissue and spraying all over himself. But it was no big matter; no one else was home, and he could just take a shower later. He went back onto the board.

_I didn't notice anything guys_, he posted after explaining what he'd tried.

**That's because you're a fag.**

**Fuck ponies.**

**It doesn't happen all at once. It takes a lot of energy over a period of time before it will start to work**, an Anonymous explained.

That night, Craig dreamed about Twilight Sparkle. He was chasing her through the Everfree Forest.

"Wait! Wait!" Craig cried.

But Twilight Sparkle continued to gallop away from him as fast as her hooves would carry her. He wished, desperately, that she would slow down so he could tell her something very important, though at that moment he couldn't quite remember what it was. He woke up the next morning with a gasp and a strong memory of the dream. He decided to return to the image board for advice.

**It didn't work because you're stupid.**

**No shit, Sherlock. Magic isn't real. Are you retarded?**

**A dream is a good first step. **

When Craig finally succeeded a week later, he succeeded all at once. He was making an omelet for breakfast when suddenly he heard a lot pop behind him. He spun, terrified, and found himself face to face with a winged, horned purple pony. His jaw seemed to fall all the way to the center of the earth.

"Wha-what is this!? Where am I?!" Twilight cried in confusion.

Craig was just as confused. "You… but… how!?"

"Who are you!?" Twilight demanded. "What is this place?"

Craig gulped. "Um, hi. My name is Craig and this is Earth."

"Earth?" She cocked her head in befuddlement. "I've never heard of Earth. And you look really weird. Are you some kind of monster?"

Craig barked a strained laugh. "No, I'm not a monster. Sorry, this is a little hard to explain. You've been, um, summoned here, by a kind of magic."

"Oh, well that I can understand." Twilight Sparkle shifted her weight on her legs. "Why did you bring me here?"

Craig blinked. Somehow, he hadn't thought of that. He never really expected it to work in the first place, so he didn't consider what he'd do if it did. She stood there, looking at him with the kind of curiosity that is in danger of collapsing into boredom.

"I need you to save the world!" he suddenly blurted out.

"Save the world?" Twilight laughed. "What do you mean?"

"I mean there's war, and poverty, and disease, and starvation, and with your magic I'm sure you could do something to help," Craig exclaimed desperately.

Twilight chuffed. "That sounds like a tall order."

"Well, what about illiteracy? You can do something about that, can't you?"

"You want me to teach people how to _read_?" Twilight was reflective. "Well, I suppose I can handle that."

"Oh, thank you thank you thank you!" Craig exclaimed.

He bent over and gave the little pony a firm hug, much to her surprise. He was amazed by how real she felt. She wasn't illusory at all; she was warm, and her flank was supple and covered in tiny purple hairs that gave her a rich pastel coloration. He could even smell her scent, which smelled more like human girl than horse, but was distinctly different from either.

"Oooo-kay," Twilight said when Craig finally let her go. "Should we start one at a time, or…?"

It dawned on Craig what he'd asked. Of the world's seven billion people, as far as he could remember at least a billion of them were illiterate. Teaching a billion people was… outside the realm of reason. Perhaps they could come at the problem from another angle.

"Well, the thing is, there are a _lot_ of illiterate people," Craig explained. "We'd never have enough time to teach them all one by one, or even in a classroom with hundreds at a time."

"Well, what's eating up all your time, then?" Twilight asked.

"You know." Craig shrugged. "Work. School. Mondays."

"What's a Monday?"

Craig blinked. "Don't you use a calendar in your world? A Monday is the first day of a seven day week."

"Our weeks only have six days. Tuesday through Sunday. You're saying that in your world, there's a whole extra day? If that's true, you should have _more_ time to learn, not less. Where do Mondays come from?"

Craig laughed out loud. That was a strange question, wasn't it? But the more he thought about it, the more the scaffolding of an answer was being assembled in his mind.

"Look, do you want something to eat?" he asked. "I guess it was kind of rude to drag you into my world without asking."

"A hay sandwich would be nice," Twilight mused. "Don't worry about it. I'm always happy to help people in trouble!"

Craig shifted, and explained, "Uh, well, we don't exactly have hay. Is an apple okay?"

"That would be lovely!"

So, Craig got her an apple out of the crisper and tossed it to her. She caught it with magic, and took a big bite. For the first time, she started looking around at her surroundings, and she was astounded by what humans had done with their magic. The kitchen was cluttered with a constellation of tiny lights, from the clock on the oven to the status light on the coffee maker.

"I think I figured out where Mondays come from."

Twilight looked up from her apple. "Yes?"

"Well, they come from the government. The government is the one who mandates the calendar and what time zone we're in and stuff like that."

"If Mondays are so bad, why would the government make them?" Twilight asked. "Governments are supposed to help people, right?"

"Well, not ours. Our government is all about war and torture and prisons and stuff."

"And illiteracy?"

Craig shrugged. "I guess so."

"Then they have to be stopped!" Twilight Sparkle cried, stamping her hoof against the tiled kitchen floor. "Nobody interferes with literacy and gets away with it while _I'm_ around!"

"Okay!" Craig agreed enthusiastically, swept up in her determination.

And that's how Craig ended up getting into his Jetta and driving off, without making the slightest preparation for the trip. He didn't take a bag, or a suitcase, or even a backpack; all he had to his name was his car and wallet. Twilight Sparkle spent some of the time goading him on with encouragements, though she was captivated by the strange world she'd unexpectedly became a part of through some Earthly magic.

"What's that?" she asked.

Craig looked over. She was gesturing to a sinuous thing of concrete and asphalt, that looked more like the pattern of arteries in a body than something intentionally manufactured.

"That's a freeway interchange. We do have aircraft here, but it's easiest to travel by carriage."

"I was meaning to ask about that. I don't see horses anywhere; how do these carriages run?"

"Oh. They burn gasoline, which is this liquid that comes out of the ground. They ignite it with spark plugs and the little explosions turn pistons, which turn gears that cause the car to run."

"Amazing! And it's all done with magic?" she asked.

"Oh, not with magic. With science."

Twilight Sparkle clapped her hooves together with glee. "I never imagined science could accomplish so much!"

"And more besides! Let me tell you about space shuttles…"

The pair continued through the highways of Los Angeles, guided by Craig's bulky, Paleolithic GPS. They bantered about everything. Twilight was a little confused by Craig's explanation of television, and totally embarrassed when he was able to narrate some of her own adventures back to her as if he'd been there himself.

"And you're saying thousands… millions… of people saw me cast the 'Want It, Need It' spell on my Smarty Pants doll?" she asked with a bright red face.

"Yeah! That was one of my favorite episodes," Craig replied.

Twilight Sparkle didn't share his enthusiasm. "Ugh! I've never been more humiliated in my entire life!"

"But millions of people love you, Twilight!" Craig objected. "You're a star!"

She just sighed through her lips and stared out of the window.

They were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when Craig finally started to wonder if he was going insane.

Here he was, driving his Jetta along the eastbound 40 on the advice of a bright, magical cartoon pony. He stared at her, and even reached out and touched her flank. She looked at him curiously.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"I'm just having trouble believing you're real," he admitted.

"Real as real can be!"

Craig groaned. At least his parents gave him a generous monthly allowance without asking too many questions about where it went; his little excursion into Schizophrenialand would probably go unremarked by his family. He resolved to just think of it as a nice road trip. And, truth be told, Twilight Sparkle kept good company. She was continually fascinated by Craig's explanations of the simplest things, and he could see the gears turning in her head as she thought of ways to return with some of the knowledge he offered her to better life in Equestria. When they got to Flagstaff, Craig realized he was starving.

"Hey, I'm going to pull off the freeway, okay? I could really use a bite to eat." He evaluated her carefully. "It would probably be safest if you stayed here."

"But - " objected Twilight.

"Seriously! If someone from this world catches you, they might do something really, really awful. Humans tend to be …" Craig searched for the right word. "Assholes."

He got out of the Jetta and got some Popeye's Chicken. There was a minimart nearby, and he bought a handful of fruits and vegetables for Twilight Sparkle. When he got back to his car, he was alarmed to discover that she was nowhere to be seen, and he looked around with wild eyes.

"Twilight! Twilight Sparkle!" he cried, drawing the stares of several families in the parking lot. "Twilight Sparkle, where did you go!?"

Twilight appeared from behind a bush, her face luminescent with pink. Craig ran forward and caught her in an embrace.

"Oh, I thought you'd disappeared." He looked at her sternly. "I told you to stay in the car. Where did you go?"

Twilight coughed.

"No, really. You can't just be running off like that. Some people in this world are _dangerous_. What did you think you were doing?"

Twilight whispered something under her breath.

"Please, Twilight, if you need something, ask first and I can help you with it."  
"I was going to the bathroom okay!?" Twilight announced angrily. "I've been cooped up in that car all day and I really had to go. Now can we just get out of here?"

They were silent for awhile after they got back on the highway. Then Craig got Twilight talking again by showing her how to work the radio, a concept she found both befuddling and deeply fascinating.

"You mean there are invisible waves travelling through the air but they're not magic?" she asked, awed.

"Yes. Radio is actually a kind of light, but the wavelength is so long you can't see it. Radio waves are transmitted by a tower for dozens of miles, and then the car's antenna picks them up and decodes them into music."

"That's amazing." Twilight yawned. "How far is it to your country's capital, again?"

"Over two thousand miles, still. It's going to be two more days."

"Yikes! What an enormous country! You can get from Canterlot to Ponyville in only a few hours by train."

In Albuquerque, Craig finally had to pull off the road and get a hotel. He was exhausted and he was starting to have hallucinations of shadows at the edge of his vision. He got a room with two beds and led Twilight Sparkle inside. As usual, she was astonished by everything in the room. The thing that interested her most was the air conditioner. Though Craig was afraid to fall asleep in case he woke up and Twilight was no longer there, he finally laid back and allowed sleep to overtake him. He was exhausted from the long day's drive.

He was awakened by a sudden burst of light.

"Uwah… wha!?" he moaned.

"Rise and shine!" a cheery voice insisted. "The early pony gets the hay!"

He blinked to discover Twilight Sparkle two inches from his face.

"Yikes!"

"We have a long day ahead of us, so let's get going!" Twilight announced with a cheer that grated on his soul.

With a groan, Craig got up, checked them out of their room, and then got them back down on the freeway.

The next two days went much like that. Twilight Sparkle asking about everything, and Craig explaining how it worked to the best of his abilities. She never got bored with his explanations and she seemed to absorb knowledge like a sponge. Craig was certain that when Twilight got back to Ponyville, she'd have a grasp of science and engineering that would make her like a pony Einstein. It was the simplest things that really astounded her, like plastic, guardrails, and billboards. On one occasion she inquired about the significance of Live Nude Girls that seemed to be featured on many of the less savory advertisements beside the highway, and Craig kept carefully silent on the subject. As they finally neared DC, Twilight started to get restless.

"I sense a great evil up ahead," she said cautiously.

Craig nodded. "That's about right."

They merged onto the 395, and took it towards the heart of WashingtonDC. Craig realized he'd come to the city without any plan whatsoever. They rolled past the cultural detritus of America's capital, from dilapidated mini-malls to broken down crack dens. When they neared the Pentagon, Twilight Sparkle gestured at it with her hoof.

"There!" she cried. "It's all coming from there!"

Dubiously, Craig got off the freeway. The Pentagon is open to at least some civilian tours, so he parked in the visitor lot and nervously strode towards the entrance, Twilight in tow.

"It's not going to be easy to get inside," Craig told her. "This is one of the most heavily guarded buildings in the entire country. Do you think you could maybe perform one of your time altering spells, like in 'It's About Time?' If you could stop time it would help an awful lot."

Twilight answered dubiously, "I don't know, but I'll give it a try."

The air around them shimmered, and they were suddenly surrounded by a pink bubble. It reached out about 12 feet around them. Everything inside the bubble apart from Craig and Twilight was completely frozen, but he could see sparks of strain flying off her horn.

"I can't hold it long!" she gasped. "Let's hurry!"

He broke into a full run and Twilight galloped as hard as she could behind him. They slipped into the building along a man swiping his card key, and, completely frozen in time, he never noticed as the pair hurried by him.

"Down!" Twilight said. "It's coming from somewhere below the building!"

The stairway door was locked, but Twilight's powerful hooves knocked it off its hinges. Craig could see the sphere around them start to shimmer and crack, and he knew they didn't have much time left inside the atemporal bubble. They rushed down the stairs as fast as they could, and blindly ran down corridors past frozen engineers, scientists, and military attachés. By blind luck, a giant steel vault door had just been in the process of closing, and they managed to squeeze through just as Twilight Sparkle completely lost control of the time spell. It dissipated, and the vault door rumbled shut behind them.

They found themselves in an enormous factory floor. Violent machines melted, hammered, etched, and cut, but the products they were working on were strangely incorporeal. They looked like living shadows, and the bizarre things seemed to scream in silent agony as the machines pounded them into their correct shape. On an upper dais, hundreds of black-robed men chanted in an ominous harmony while they meditated. With a sudden, startling realization, Craig realized what he was looking at.

"They're tulpas!" he exclaimed. "They're tulpas of Mondays! The government is _manufacturing_ Mondays!"

"Then we have to stop them," Twilight announced with a nod.

Heedless of personal safety, the pair rushed into the fray and started damaging the machinery as much as possible. Craig found an iron rebar and whaled on control panels while Twilight Sparkle flew up to the dais and delivered a righteous beatdown on the wizards chanting their hideous tune. They were terrified of the strange, alien creature that they as well as Craig could see, but they didn't dare stop chanting in case they drew the wrath their dark lord, Dick Cheney. Under their combined assault, the machinery started to creak and groan. Craig found a small tank of pure oxygen and hurled it into a macerator, causing a large explosion that sent the giant machine clattering to a halt. Arc welders sputtered into silence. Conveyor belts stopped conveying and furnaces stopped furnacing. They weren't sure how long it took before the ghastly engine of tyranny finally stopped, but when Craig was finally completely out of breath, he pulled out his Galaxy S5 and quickly brought up the calendar.

He started to cry tears of joy.

Twilight alighted on the metal deck next to him.

"Did we win?" she asked.

Wordlessly, he showed her the screen. Sure enough, the first day of the week was Tuesday; a week that ended on Sunday with no Monday to be seen.

The evil mages still standing looked up as if they'd been released from a spell.

"What have we been _doing_ all these years?" asked one.

Another stripped off his robes, leaving him in polka dot boxers.

"_Fuck_ Dick Cheney!" the reformed mage announced.

The great door of the vault was opened, and outside people were shouting in celebration. Word spread like wildfire and every website in the world lit up with posts and comments. Every watch, every clock, every calendar in the world, whether physical or digital, suddenly lost all reference to the most hated day in the week. All across the country, people lit off fireworks, flashed their highbeams, and honked their horns in joy when they discovered that the vile abomination of Monday had been extinguished forever. The entire US government resigned in disgrace.

Pakistan and India agreed at once to a peace treaty and immediately started disassembling their nukes. Israel and Palestine realized that all of their differences could be traced back to a particularly bad Monday in the year CE 422, and they decided to unite as one democratic and peaceful nation since they no longer had any reason to fight. Fred Phelps put down his "God hates fags" sign and took up a new cause; "God loves everyone!" And with one fewer day in the workweek sucking the life and joy out of people, literacy rates quickly skyrocketed.


End file.
